Book reviews

This is the second volume from the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University that is concerned with the extreme northwest corner of British Columbia. While Fladmark's report on the Edziza and Spectrum Ranges is almost completely prehistoric in nature, this monograph is devoted to contemporary Northern Athapaskan ethnography, with an archaeological raison d'être. This region of British Columbia is not well known by virtue of its remoteness, and thus the volume is a welcome contribution. Albright's research brings to light many unpublished observations by early ethnographers and meshes these quite well with data obtained during her five years among the people of Telegraph Creek and Iskut. Overall this is a good piece of research which provides many concise descriptions and occasional theoretical and methodological insights. The treatment of Tahltan technology is clear and to the point. Anyone who still thinks that archaeologists cannot learn from living people should read the chapter dealing with Tahltan resource exploitation. This section is the most substantive contribution, through discussion of the various components of exploitative strategies, and also with the attention that is focused on the role of women in the society. Readers may be surprised to learn that women in the region are actively making stone tools and using them to dress large mammal hides (as are others in the Chilko Lake region much further south), and here Albright does a good job of illustrating the methods and products of manufacture. Likewise, salmon processing, hunting, trapping, fishing, and cooking methods are well described without being overly dry or redundant. The sections devoted to the region's history and to Tahltan means of maintaining economic stability are also enjoyable and informative, but the same cannot be said of the presentation of the study's theoretical

T,he body of M. de la Fontaine's work consists of about 120 pages, one-third of which is devoted to a description of the endemic affection ; a fourth part is filled with details as to the causes, and the rest consists of cases. The author promises in his preamble to conform to the motto, which he has borrowed from Selle: " Theories were long in -cogue; this is now the reign of observation." This oracle of a judicious physician recals the precept of the first master of the art, who requires that before attempting to reason, we should have acquired an intimate knowledge of the events, phenomena, and circumstances, which form a disease. It is the part of nature, when well examined, to enlighten the mind: f> instead of setting out from palpable facts, reason takes foold of probable suppositions, the medical Consequences may be dangerous. Such' is the precept of Hippocrates as to the true mode of observation to be practised, and which no modern, in my humble opinion, lias followed with more precision than Morton. M. de la Fontaine affirms what is at best doubtful, when he says, that the plica is occasioned by a subtle' matter, which is thrown in a critical manner on the hair: In a first definition we only require the sensible aspect of the thing, a,1d a faithful image of the injured organs, without mixing the smallest probable supposition of a reason too apt to mislead. " The plica spares neither age, sex, nor rank ; and strangers, when newly arrived in Poland, are liable to it as Well as the natives." This assertion is exaggerated in all its bearings : so far as strangers are concerned, the long stay of the grand army, in the plains of the Vistula, give the most tormal contradiction to the assertion 011 this head.
Far less do 1 understand his doctrine of contagion?u The "rst species of contagion, the most  produces the greatest number of cases of plica, is that which has been brought into the world with the child." 1 ask if this ought to be called contagion ? Is it not rather a disposition, a hereditary transmission, which also requires its proof? The second kind of contagion takes place, because the disease has been " communicated by the nurse, or by some person who was attacked by it and with whom we may have slept." It is admitted, however, that the plica is rarely contracted in this manner. He also conjectures, that the virus may be received from a woman with whom a person has intercourse, whether she has the matter of the plica still lurking in the mass of'humours, or even has the disease in the " genital parts but to these vain suppositions I have to oppose innumerable examples of married couples, children, and animals, crowded together under one roof, and yet the disease has been fortunately confined to one individual.
A third kind of contagion proceeds from " the clothes, such as hats, caps, &c. which have been worn by several per son si" This, the author informs us, is the least violent df aill: it, however, brings some tales to his recollection, which' I cannol conscientiously regard as matters of fact; in this manner setting out from a primary species of contagion, which really does not exist, ?he two succeeding kinds go on diminishing, till the object is reduced to nothing, and the phantom Vanishes.
M. de la Fontaine describes at great length, the symptoms which he ascribes to plica; this part which has been treated by so many authors, ought to have been limited to a support \ of the diagnostic of the precise assemblage of symptoms peculiar to a lesion sui generis, instead of encumbering with the special symptoms of an endemic every imaginable disease.
No one can now be ignorant that we ought to be on our guard against these prolix and unconnected descriptions,surcharged with superannuated theories, humours, morbid matters; lymph, &c. and in which more than doubtful observations are drowned in a deluge of words. Persons have not scrupled to assimilate the plica to the plague, and to syphilis, in order to <^ive countenance to (he hypothesis of one and the same degree of virulence and contagion, to the small pox, so deduce a similar affection as inherent in Polish blood?to leprous diseases, with which, vhat 1 may call the Jeprosy of Poland, has some analogy in its origin,-principle, and phenomena. This last comparison is the only plausible one, in my opinion, the cessation of the lepra in Europe, having been marked by circumstances capable of enlightening enlightening our medical police> as to the . true methods ot extirpating the trichoma.
The mania for scholastic distinctions, even in the present stage of our analytical knowledge, is a reproach to us ; pathology lias been already purged from it in a few good modern works : and when 1 reflect on the nosographical surveys of ^inel and Richprend, I see in them a reciprocal emulation of a good analytical method, in the two first branches of medical science. The plica is unique in its seat, in its principle ; and every thing connected -with the wretched beings who are attacked by it, also serves to multiply the maladies conjoined with it, exhibiting the severest complications and the most afflicting pictures ; such, in my opinion, is the true and simple method of observing and analysing this affection of the liair, without there being any necessity for stopping, with M. de la Fontaine, at the fastidious divisions and subdivisions of species, into which every inventor has sought to introduce. I am rather better pleased with the sketch given by M. Alibert, of the external characters of plica, which he refers to three principal forms, and to their varieties ; I qualify my opinion with respect to this writer, solely with a wish that he had excluded the denomination of specics, the mathematical precision of forms which is not in nature, and the limitation of the varieties which may be innumerable, or at least furnish new forms to be described, such as the round plica, the squamous plica, &c. The cause of plica is an important object, but the work in question glides over it very slightly, giving us only a few common places, without instructing us.
The author figures to himself a plicous matter hitherto unknown: taking his comparisons from the venereal, scrophulous, scorbutic and arthritic vices: he deeides that the plica, by its proximate cause, is a 66 humour sni generis, viscous, acrid, and carried bv the lymph into the hairs and 1Jails, to be there deposited in a manner that may be rer garded as critical." This ex cathedra language; this im^ perative tone, teaches me nothing, except that the motto of the coach is forgotten, the precept of Selle not followed, and the promises of M. de la Fontaine unperformed. We may also perceive that his reasons hesitate between doubt and affirmation. " It is not easy" he adds, " to determine what are the causes which produce this humour; for neither the air nor the water, nor even the food seems to contribute to it." What would the author bring us to, when, for these thirty years he has seen and attended thousands of patients, and yet leaves us so far behind with respect to the disease ?

This
On the Plica Polonica, by De la Fontaine.
This, in my opinion, is evidently the accidental impulse of a retrograde doctrine, adopted however by an excellent mind.
M. de la Fontaine ventures to say, " That we are equally liable to the plica whether we carefully comb our hair, or jieglect it." This assertion is very vague, to say no more: it has never been hazarded by any observer. Admitting, however, the possibility of the fact, it is invariably true that combing the hair renders the affection much more rare, setting aside any other domestic causes that may provoke it. Can the author be ignorant that the state of abject servility inseparable from the lower classes in Poland, induces such a state of apathy, that the only combs they use are their nails, and these are only applied when the itching of vermin forces them to resort to scratching ? Cap he be ignorant that in the higher classes, ^mong whom the plica is very rare, notwithstanding the singularity of some cases, cleanliness is most rigidly attended to.
On these points, I am in possession of authentic facts, because a physician, when he seeks to probe the source of the trichoma to the bottom, ought not to take advantage of any general charge of want of cleanliness, otherwise he is guilty of a voluntary neglect of the most simple appearances of the disease.
The article of the author on the cure of plica, subjoined tq an appendix on the question of cutting off the hair, comprises 25 pages, of which J have already in another place given the following summary: " The plan of treatment refers to the , specific virtues assigned to antimony, and gives con jectures as to the eruption, explosion, Crisis, metastasis, and other phantoms of the same kind. In all this M. de la Fontaine conforms to the established ideas : in what he has written we perceive a very intelligent mind subjugatedby tl\e errors of others." M. Fraijche, author of a large work on medical police, and of the excellent Epitome de Morbis, resided at Posen two or three years before I did, and nearly for the same space oftime.
Many cases of plica occurred in his practice, on that occasion ; he succeeded in eradicating the disease as often as it occurred, by administering the remedies indicated by the kind and degree of cachexia under which the patient laboured. This mode of practice so naturally resulting from rational medicine, obliterates the five-and-twenty pages of M. de la Fontaine, and every romance of the same description. The true system on the subject of plica, assigns its commencement to an extreme neglect of cleanliness, and to the filth which is consequently propagated to all around the same fire-side : the same system, proceeding afterwards from cause to cffect, calls our attention to other circumstances prejudicial to health. These last?
last, on the contrary, arc regarded as*the chief objects by the inhabitants and medical practitioners of Poland: they are referred to in an inverse ratio to an alleged specific virus, the materia trichomalica of the Germans. M. de la Fontaine, and several others before him, have made this the basis of an universal pathology. Here we have the unavoidable mistake, resulting from substituting effect for cause. M. de la Fontaine thus commences his chapter on the meihod of cure : " Sometimes, as I have already mentioned, we sec the plica developed without having been preceded by any disagreeable accident, separated from the head and replaced by new and sound hairs, without the patient having recourse to any remedy." What he had already mentioned is to be perused at p. 17. of his work, in the following words : " Frequently," (instead of sometimes) u the plica declares itself without being preceded by the slightest indisposition, (instead of any disagreeable accident.) This fact, although it, does vary in the mode of expressing, it is sufficient to prove to the reader, that the majority of the Polish nation never have the plica; a great part of tiie minority in this calculation have this disease as an external affection only, and which may be avoided by attention to cleanliness; the most of these last individuals are in good health, both before and during the disease ; it would be ridiculous to assign the smallest trichomatic vice to them. There remains, therefore, but a small number of miserable beings who may be considered as really diseased, and to whom we must apply either by supposition, or conditionally, the assertion of the author, namely, that " this affection is not always equally mild, and that most commonly it requires both internal and external applications." The reader is left to judge if the trichomatic vice is still necessary.
clotted, is sufficient, since it fulls off under the cognizance of our senses ? M. dc la Fontaine continues : " "When the plica shews itself, we ought exclusively to apply ourselves to soften the viscous, gluey, acrid, and irritating matter, and to render it fit for passing into the hair." Here then we have the thickening of a viscous and gluey matter, which may mechanically retard the critical transition just spoken of; but the plica does not exist the less for this, and it must be paid attention to : " We obtain this object (that of softening the viscous matter) by the use of dissolving, diluting, saponaceous and emollient plants, such as burdock, chicory, bittersweet, sassafras, guaiacum, See. Sometimes these methods are sufficient for determining the crisis; but in most cases they ought to be united with the following : extract of henbane, hemlock, flowers of sulphur, calomel, Plumer's alterative powder, golden sulphur of antimony recently prepared, Thedcn's antimonial tincture, and antimonial lozenges-Antimony ac.ts against plica with almost as much energy as mercury does against the venereal disease. If it be summer lime, the patients ought to be put on a diet consisting of the juice of vegetables mixed with broth or whey ; or rather this last liquid ought to be prescribed instead of tli? decoction of the plants above mentioned." All this pharmaceutical regimen still admits of the plica being still seen in full vigour ?without any check ; this is not a treatment of the disease; but let us follow the author.
" If the morbific principle, by the use of these different means, be not disposed to pass into the hair, as is the case with the viscous exudations from the head ; he may have recourse to sudorifics, such as the spirits of mindererus, amber, volatile alkali, Dover's powders, and henbane mixed with camphor, &c. The formula] given at the end of this work have almost always attained the objects I had in view.".
Here the same reader will not think himself obliged to connect with the lazy theory of the morbific principle disposed to pass into the hair, the symptomatic consequence of the sweats of the head which take place spontaneously from heat, vermin, the filth of the plica, and the action of the coverings used on the head : the following is the real state of the matter.
In sound reason, the defective volatile preparations, and the formula enumerated by the author, have no more therapeutic relation with the phenomenon in question, thaii the double series of preliminary remedies above detailed, and among which it would not be difficult to point out several empirical absurdities. What M. de la Fontaine says on the subject of his experi-. ments On ilie Plica Polonica, by De la Fontaine. 335 \ mrnfs made with Iycopodium is not very conclusive ; the employment of the substance formerly recommended against the trichoma, brings to our recollection those popular remedies accredited post hoc and propter hoc, in diseases subject to intervals of suspension, or of long intermission. The internal exhibition of the powder of Iycopodium, its external application, and the employment of the plant in substance as a bath, and in fomentation, according as the disease lias appeared to be interrupted, have led some persons astray ; but the plica has not the less ceased to re-appear as usual, amid the causes which never fail to produce it.
We are apprized that we cannot have recourse to the different remedies hitherto detailed, except when there is nof fever: this ought to put his readers on tlieir guard. u If fever manifests itself, and it is violent, we must have recourse to antiphlogistics, and even venesection as a precaution. This however must be practised with circumspection. If obstructions are accumulated in the primae vias, we ought to administer digestives, cooling evacuants, and vomits, taking care however not to prescribe evacuants, except in urgent cases, and to be cautious in them all." The fever, or the various types of fever, are among the number of conjoint and remittent diseases which ought to be exhibited in the same sphere in which we see the trichoma. The reader will judge that the fever is without doubt an incident which throws discredit on the systemofthe author5and which a true physician would not pass over so slightly as with antiphlogistics, bleedings, digestions, vomits, and evacuants, it" there is a complication of obstructions, &c. But let us foliovV ihe author through the rest of the chapter; " As the small-pox cannot declare itself without fever ; in *he same manner without this symptom, the plica cannot throw itself into the hair. We ought, therefore, to place iu> obstacle in the way of this fever, which is so necessary on producing the crisis; we ought rather cautiously to avoid disturbing nature in her progress ; we ought to increase the frver if it be too weak, and weaken it if it be too violent; in short, to keep it at a proper degree, in order that the crisis |nay take effect; at this Stage, the greatest attention is requisite on the part of the physician." The reader, astonished at the common places, so elegautly jumbled together in tile above article, will 110 doubt say, that (he comparison between the small-pox and the trichoma is not a very happy one ;? the fever, preparatory to the variolous eruption, is a constant phenomenon; it may be regarded as a necessary element of the exanthematous, fermentation ; On the Plica Polomica. by De la Fontaine. mentation; but the fever which M. de la Fontaine wishes to establish as a condition, without which the plica cannot be thrown into the hair, while this plica already exists, and isvisibleeven in the eyes, is a mere chimera. Has he not told us immediately before, that sometimes, nay frequent/?/, we see the trichoma formed without the smallest indisposition ; but $nmli*pox admits of no such exceptions. The parallel he wishes to. draw, therefore, proves the absurdity of ihc observation, and there is neither occasion for a fever nor a crisis in plica. Hypothesis mentita est sibi. If I should have incurred the rcproaches of my readers for not having sufficiently detailed in this extract the trichomatic sj'mptomatology of M. de la Fontaine, and for having called the whole of it in question, they will now See that I was well founded in my scepticism : for if this pretended fever was a capital symptom, And consequently to be described before describing the method of cure* it would be as essential to the invasion of the plica as the usual fever is in small-pox. Now the author has not said a word on this subject; and I have made a most rigid scrutiny to discover if he has. It gives me pain to be compelled to notice the numerous assertions hazarded at pleasure, and Soon invalidated or contradicted in subsequent parts of the same book.
The reader will be enabled to judge of the truth of what I say from a perusal of the present analysis.
Notwithstanding the length to which I have already brought my observations, I must still claim indulgence for a few more quotations: " The crisis, as I have already said, is frequently decided suddenly ; but frequently also it does not appear until some days, weeks, or eVen months have elapsed.1* Here we have the word frequently twice in conflict for two different events, one of which seems to be of more rare occurrence Mian the other. If we turn to what he has already said, we find these words : " The plica sometimes is not manifested until after several weeks, several months, or eren several years.1' This version affords us a little more latitude than the foregoing. u All this depends," the author adds, on the disposition of the humours, and -on the intenseness of the fever." Nothing certainly can be more luminous, or more conclusive than this solution?" If the patient be already weakened by anterior accidents or by age" (he might have said, also, by the abuse of'remedies, or bv imaginary modes of treatment) the fever is commonly insufficient to produce the ? crisis; we ought, therefore, to increase the strength of the patients pfttients by generous food, such as rich soups, chocolate, wine, &c." What are we to make of this galimaufry, so aptly callcd by Horace, the voccs inopes rerum ? What becomes now of the comparison of plica with small-pox, so far as the sine quanon condition of fever is concerned. Let us take the most reasonable supposition, namely, that the patient being So weakened, that he can support nothing. The crisis, the fever, which ought to come on, do not make their appearance ; this does not please M. de la Fontaine, however, and yet he seems disposed to renounce his theory, when he endeavours to strengthen his patient by good analeptics. The expedient is sage, and would no doubt be agreeable to all plicous patients ; but unfortunately, it is likel^ to remain oil paper only, as the disease is Confined to the poor, who can-Hot command the objects of lifxury thus liberally prescribed.
Throughout the remainder of the description of the method of cure, there are perpetual considerations, in Consequence of the chimerical phenomena adopted by the author : all kinds of symptoms, accidents, and anomalies of every possible disease, are referred tothephamtom of a trichomatic habit. If it be a merit to accumulate more sophisms than any other writer on the trichoma, M. de la Fontaine has a claim to great honours ; lie affirms the pro and the contra indiscriminately ; he promises success on all cases, and yet gives us proves of it in iione.
The grand consequence of his ideal doctrine is to refer every thingto plica, and to its filthy concomitants ; by his perpetual recurrence to the latter, he exhibits the true origin of this dreadful disease ; an origin which he refuses to assign to it; in his impatience to obtain the crisis of this nasty disease* he does not scruple, to the disgrace of science, to provoke it by artificial means, namely, by inoculation. This is the very crisis of insanity ! A long article by M. de Lafontaine, on cutting off the hair in plica, is written in the same spirit of hypothesis and The subject of the second case is a female, who was so deluged with medicines for rheumatism that she fell into severe convulsions. The disposition to plica here was extremely hypothetical : the irritation was provoked at the roots of the hair by profuse sweats, and by the hair being clotted. There is nothing in this case to prove that rheumatism and plica are in any way connected. The third case is in my opinion insignificant ; the trichoma is no preservative against the effects of drunkenness. The fourth case refers to a paralytic patient who recovers the use of his limbs after a copious sweat: was it indispensible that lie should also have the plica at the same" time in the hairy part of his body ? Strengthening medicines completed the cure, as the author informs us. and relates more than he reasons. This is the true touchstone In the earliest period of the healing art, the instruments of medicine were few in number, their powers were ill understood, and their application in the cure of disease absurd and inefficacious. Another period saw the Materia Medjca loaded with a confused abundance of articles, the employment of which was guided by theories that had little regard to the laws of nature, and were often in direct contradiction to plain matter of fact. In a third period, the Physician returning to the simplicity of truth, selected, arranged ; and pruned, with a bold hand, inert redundancies.
The latest effort to improve the condition of this essential branch of the medical art, has been the Pharmacopoeia of the London College of 1809. The Pharmacopoeias of" Edinburgh and Dublin had previously been revived. Some disagreement still, however, exists in the nomenclature of these authorized collections. A few years since, this little volume undertook to bring iu;o a perspicuous form, and in a size adapted to the pocket, the sometimes discordant materials of the preceding work3. It had then our fresh approbation ; and many oppor-i tunities have confirmed its practical utility. This pew edition, whicji the alterations made in the London .and Edinburgh Pharmacopoeias have called for, we cannot doubt will prove equally useful.
A.s a specimen of the execution of this convenient volume, we insert the following new articles.
Arsenici Oxydum (i. n.) Pr/Epa^atum. Prepared white ar$ev nic; tonic ; in intermittents, periodic headach?. leporous affection*;, &c. (See Lig.) in gases of deleterious or poisonous effects from it, recourse should'be had to a free use of mucilages and milk, particularly the former, to sheath the stomach, and to a solution of sulphurat ot potash as a corrective. Externally escharotic ; against cancerous sores, arsenic gr. iv. water frij, or arsenic 33s??)ij, cerate of sperma cejti and hogs lard, each gss.
Liquor Arsenicalis. L. Arsenici oxidi pra;p. in pulverem subtiliss. triti, potassac subcarbonatis extartaro, sing. gr. Ixiv. Aquse dis't. ibj. Boil them together in a glass vessel, until the arsenic is dissolved. When the solution is cold, add Spir. Lavend. comp. 50s, and as much distilled water as will make the whole equal to a pint. Tonic, M v ad M x bis terve die, diluted in thick gruel.